Widows

by Ed McBain

  See you later.

  Bye!

  "Gives me a hard-on, this woman," Brown said, and shook his head, and said, "Whoosh," and slid the letter back under the rubber band that held the stack of letters together. He was sitting beside Carella in one of the squad's unmarked cars, a three-year-old Plymouth sedan with the air conditioner on the fritz, both men sweltering as they drove uptown again to the Schumacher apartment. It had taken them an hour and a half this morning to get a court order to open Schumacher's safe-deposit box, and another half hour to get to the bank, not far from his office on Jasper Street. The box had contained only the letters and a pair of first-class airline tickets to Milan, one in Schumacher's name, the other in Susan Brauer's.

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  There were seventeen letters in all, five fewer than Schumacher had written. The first one - the one Brown had been reading - was dated three days after Schumacher's first letter, and seemed to be in direct response to it. Like his letters, none of these were signed. Each of the letters was neatly typed. Each started with the same salutation and ended with the same complementary close. Hi and Bye Like a vivacious little girl writing to someone she'd met in camp. Some little girl, Brown thought.

  "You think he was losing interest?" he asked.

  "I'm sorry, what?" Carella said.

  His mind had been drifting again. He could not shake the image of his mother in the bakery shop, wandering the shop, touching all the things that had belonged to his father.

  "I mean, he meets her on New Year's Day, and this is only June when he gets her to write him these hot letters. Sounds as if he was maybe losing interest."

  "Then why would he be taking her to Europe?"

  "Maybe the letters got things going again," he said, and was silent for a moment. "You ever write any kind of letters like these?"

  "No, did you?"

  "No. Wish I knew how."

  They were approaching the Selby Place apartment. Carella searched for a parking spot, found one in a No Parking zone, parked there anyway, and threw down the visor to display a placard with the Police Department logo on it. It seemed cooler outside the car than it had inside. Little breeze blowing here on the tree-shaded street. They walked up the street, announced themselves to the doorman, and then took the elevator up to the sixth floor.

  What they had already concluded was that Arthur Schumacher and Susan Brauer had been exchanging intimate letters and that they'd been planning to fly to Italy together at the end of the month. What they did not know was whether Margaret Schumacher had known all this. They were here to question her further. Because if she had known . . .

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  "Come in," she said, "have you learned anything?"

  Seemingly all concerned and anxious and looking drawn and weary; her husband had been buried yesterday morning. They had to play this very carefully. They didn't want to tell her everything they knew, but at the same time it was virtually impossible to conduct a fishing expedition without dangling a little bait in the water.

  Carella told her they were now investigating the possibility that her husband's death may have been connected to a previous homicide they'd been investigating . . .

  "Oh? What previous homicide?"

  . . . and that whereas when they were here on Saturday they'd merely been doing a courtesy follow-up for the two detectives who'd initiated the investigation into her husband's death . . .

  "A courtesy follow-up?" she said, annoyed by Carella's unfortunate choice of a word.

  "Yes, ma'am," he said, "in order to keep the investigation ongoing ..."

  . . . but under the so-called First Man Up rule, the previous homicide demanded that both cases be investigated by the detectives who'd caught the first one. This meant that her husband's case was now officially theirs, and they'd be the ones. . .

  "What previous homicide?" she asked again.

  "The murder of a woman named Susan Brauer," Carella said, and watched her eyes.

  Nothing showed in those eyes.

  "Do you know anyone by that name?" Brown asked.

  Watching her eyes.

  "No, I don't."

  Nothing there. Not a flicker of recognition.

  "You didn't read anything about her murder in the papers ..."

  "No."

  ". . . or see anything about it on television?"

  "No."

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  "Because it's had a lot of coverage."

  "I'm sorry," she said, and looked at them, seemingly or genuinely puzzled. "When you say my husband's death may have been connected ..."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  ". . .to this previous homicide ..."

  "Yes, ma'am, that's a possibility we're now considering."

  Lying of course. It was no longer a mere possibility but a definite probability. Well, yes, there did exist the remotest chance that Arthur Schumacher's death was totally unrelated to Susan Brauer's but there wasn't a cop alive who'd have accepted million-to-one odds on such a premise.

  "Connected how?"

  The detectives looked at each other.

  "Connected how?" she said again.

  "Mrs Schumacher," Carella said, "when we were here on Saturday, when we found that key in your husband's desk, you said the only safe-deposit box you had was up here at First Federal Trust on Culver Avenue, that's what you told us on Saturday."

  "That's right."

  "You said you didn't know of any box at Union Savings, which was the name of the bank printed on that little red envelope. You said ..."

  "IsriWdon't."

  "Mrs Schumacher, there « a box at that bank, and it's in your husband's name."

  They were still watching her eyes. If she'd known what was in that box, if she now realized that they, too, knew what was in it, then something would have shown in her eyes, on her face, something would have flickered there. But nothing did.

  "I'm surprised," she said.

  "You didn't know that box existed."

  "No. Why would Arthur have kept a box all the way downtown? We ..."

  "Union Savings on Wellington Street," Brown said. "Three blocks from his office."

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  "Yes, but we have the box up here, you see. So why would he have needed another one?"

  "Have you got any ideas about that?" Carella asked.

  "None at all. Arthur never kept anything from me, why wouldn't he have mentioned a safe-deposit box down there near his office? I mean . . . what was in the box, do you know?"

  "Mrs Schumacher," Brown said, "did you know your husband was planning a trip to Europe at the end of the month?"

  "Yes, I did."

  "Italy and France, wasn't it?"

  "Yes, on business."

  Coming up on it from the blind side, trying to find out if she'd known about those tickets in the safe-deposit box, if she had somehow seen those tickets . . .

  "Leaving on the twenty-ninth for Milan ..."

  ... or had learned in some other way, any other way, about the affair her husband was having with a beautiful, twenty-two . . .

  "Yes."

  "... and returning from Lyons on the twelfth of August."

  "Yes."

  "Had you planned on going with him?"

  "No, I just told you, it was a business trip."

  "Did he often go on business trips alone?"

  "Yes. Why? Do you think the trip had something to do with his murder?"

  "Do you think it might have?" he asked.

  "I don't see how. Are you saying someone ... I mean, I just don't understand how the trip could have had anything to do with it."

  "Are you sure he-was going alone?" Carella asked.

  "Yes, I think so," she said. "Or with one of his partners."

  "Did he say he was going with one of his partners?"

  "He didn't say either way. I don't understand. What are you . . .?" and suddenly her eyes narrowed, and she looked

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  sharply and suspiciously at Carella and then snapped the same look at Brown
. "What is this?" she asked.

  "Mrs Schumacher," Carella said, "did you have any reason to believe your husband ..."

  "No, what is this?"

  "... might not be traveling alone?"

  "What the hell is this?"

  So there they were, at the crossroads.

  And as Yogi Berra once remarked, "When you come to a crossroads, take it."

  Carella glanced at Brown. Brown nodded imperceptibly, telling him to go ahead and bite the bullet. Carella's eyes flicked acceptance.

  "Mrs Schumacher," he said, "when we were here last Saturday, you told us your husband had not been involved with another woman. You seemed very definite about that."

  "That's right, he wasn't. Would you mind . . .?"

  "We now have evidence that he was, in fact, involved with someone."

  "What? What do you mean?"

  "Evidence that links him to Susan Brauer."

  Both of them alert now for whatever effect the revelation might have on her. Watching her intently. The eyes, the face, the entire body. They had just laid it on the line. If she'd known about the affair . . .

  "Links him to her?" she said. "What does that mean, links him to her?"

  "Intimately," Carella said.

  What seemed like genuine surprise flashed in her eyes.

  "Evidence?" she said.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "What evidence?"

  The surprise giving way to a look of almost scoffing disbelief.

  "Letters she wrote to him," Carella said. "Letters we found in his safe-deposit..."

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  "Well, what does . . .? Letters? Are you saying this woman wrote some letters to my husband?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Even so, that doesn't mean ..."

  "We have his letters, too. The letters he wrote to her."

  "Arthur wrote . . .?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Don't be ridiculous."

  "We found the letters in her apartment."

  "Letters Arthur wrote to her?"

  "They weren't signed, but we feel certain ..."

  "Then how do you . . .? Where are these letters? I want to see these letters."

  "Mrs Schumacher ..."

  "I have a right to see these letters. If you're saying my husband was involved with another woman ..."

  "Yes, ma'am, he was."

  "Then I want to see proof. You're trying to ... to ... make it seem he was having an affair with . . . this . . . this woman, whatever her name was ..."

  "Susan Brauer."

  "I don't care what it was! I don't believe a word of what you're saying. Arthur was never unfaithful to me in his life! Don't you think I'd have known if he was unfaithful? Are you deliberately trying to hurt me?" she shouted. "Is that it?" Eyes flashing now, entire body trembling. "I don't have to answer any more of your questions," she said, and went immediately to the phone. "My husband was a partner in one of the biggest law firms in this city, you can just go fuck yourself," she said, and began dialing.

  "Mrs Schumacher ..."

  "There's the door," she said, and then, into the phone, "Mr Loeb, please."

  Carella looked at Brown.

  "Please leavel" Margaret shouted. Into the phone, in a quieter but still agitated voice, she said, "Lou, I have two detectives here who just violated my rights. What do I. . .?"

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  They left.

  In the hallway outside, while they waited for the elevator, Carella said, "What do you think?"

  "Tough one to call," Brown said.

  "This isn't new, you know."

  "You're talking about last week, right?"

  "Yeah, Saturday. I mean, she got angry from minute one, today isn't something new."

  "Maybe we've got shitty bedside manners."

  "I'm sure," Carella said.

  The elevator doors slid open. They got into the car and hit the button for the lobby. They were both silent as the elevator hummed down the shaft, each of them separately thinking that Margaret Schumacher had just treated them to a fine display of surprise, shock, disbelief, indignation, anger, and hurt over the news of her husband's infidelity, but there was no way of knowing if any of it had been genuine.

  As they stepped out of the building, the heat hit them like a closed fist.

  "You think her lawyer's gonna call us?" Brown asked.

  "Nope," Carella said.

  He was wrong.

  A detective named Mary Beth Mulhaney was working the door.

  She normally worked out of the Three-One; Eileen had met her up there, oh, it must've been four years ago, when they'd called Special Forces for a decoy. Guy was beating up women on the street, running off into the night with their handbags. Eileen had run the job for a week straight without getting a single nibble. The hairbag lieutenant up there told her it was because she looked too much like a cop, SF should've sent him somebody else. Eileen suggested that maybe he'd like to go out there in basic black and pearls, see if he couldn't tempt the mugger to hit on him. The lieutenant told her not to get smart, young lady.

  There was a lot of brass down here outside the lingerie

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  shop. Emergency Service had contained the owner of the shop

  and the woman she was keeping hostage, barricading the front

  of the place and cordoning off the street. Mary Beth was

  working the back door, far from the Monday morning crowd

  that had gathered on the street side. The brass included Chief

  of Patrol Dylan Curran, whose picture Eileen had seen in

  police stations all over town, and Chief of Detectives Andrew

  Brogan, who all those years ago had reprimanded Eileen for

  talking back to the hairbag lieutenant at the Three-One, and

  Deputy Inspector John Di Santis who was in command of the

  Emergency Service and whom Eileen had seen on television

  only the other night at the Calm's Point Bridge where a guy

  who thought he was Superman was threatening to fly off into

  the River Dix. But Brady was the star.

  A sergeant from Emergency Service was softly explaining to Eileen and the other trainees that the lady in there had a .357 Magnum in her fist and that she'd threatened to kill the only customer still in her shop if the police didn't back off. The reason the police were here to begin with was that the lady in there had already chased another customer out of her shop when she complained that the elastic waistband on a pair of panties she'd bought there had disintegrated in the wash.

  The lady - whose name was Hildy Banks - had yanked the Magnum she kept under the counter for protection against armed robbers and such, and had fired two shots at the complaining customer, who'd run in terror out of the shop. Hildy had then turned the gun on the other terrified woman and had told her to stop screaming or she'd kill her. The woman had not stopped screaming. Hildy had fired two more shots into the air, putting a hole in the ceiling and knocking a carton of half-slips off the topmost shelf in the store. The police were there by then. One of the responding blues yelled "Holy shit!" when Hildy slammed another shot through the front door. That was when Emergency Service was called. After which they'd beeped -

  "Can we keep it down back there?"

  Inspector Brady. Standing beside Mary Beth, who was

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  talking calmly to the lady behind the door. Turning his head momentarily to scold the Emergency Service sergeant, and then giving Mary Beth his full attention again. Eileen wondered how long Mary Beth had been working with the unit. Brady seemed to be treating her like a rookie, whispering instructions to her, refusing to let her run with it. Mary Beth shot him an impatient look. He seemed not to catch it. He seemed to want to handle this one all by himself. Eileen guessed the only reason Mary Beth was outside that door was because the taker inside was a woman.

  "Hildy?"

  Mary Beth outside the door, cops everywhere you looked in that backyard. The rear door of the shop
opened onto a small fenced-in courtyard. It was on the street-level floor of an apartment building, and clotheslines ran from the windows above to telephone poles spaced at irregular intervals all up and down the block. Trousers and shirts hung limply on the humid air, arms and legs dangling. Just in case Hildy in there decided to blow her head off, Mary Beth was crouched to one side of the door, well beyond the sight-lines of the single window on the brick wall. She was a round-faced woman with eyes as frosty blue as glare ice, wearing a blue shirt hanging open over a yellow T-shirt and gray slacks. No lipstick. No eye shadow. Cheeks rosy red from the heat. Perspiration dripping down her face. Eyes intent on that door. She was hoping nothing would come flying through it. Or the window, either.

  "Hildy?" she said again.

  "Go away! Get out of here! I'll kill her."

  Voice on the edge of desperation. Eileen realized the woman in there was as terrified as her hostage. The cops outside here had to look like an army to her. Chief of Patrol Curran pacing back and forth, hands behind his back, a general wondering whether his troops would take this one or blow it. Chief of Detectives Brogan standing apart with two other beefy men in plainclothes, whispering softly, observing

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  Mary Beth at the door. Uniformed policemen with rifles and handguns - out of sight, to be sure.

  You promise them no guns, no shooting, Eileen thought. And you meant it. Unless or until. All these cops were here and ready to storm the joint the moment anyone got hurt. Kill the hostage in there, harm the hostage in there, you took the door. Hurt a cop outside here, same thing. You played the game until the rules changed. And then you went cop.

  "Hildy, I'm getting that coffee you asked for," Mary Beth said.

  "Taking long enough," Hildy said.

  "We had to send someone down the street for it."

  "That was an hour ago."

  "No, only ten minutes, Hildy."

  "Don't argue with her," Brady whispered.